Kindness from the Kitchen

I'm home! Sunburned and footsore and happy. The Walk for a Nuclear Free Future was a good experience. I stepped out of my comfort zone. I made new friends and was able to reconnect with friends that I made during the Walk for a Nuclear Free Future in 2010. I even learned a few words in Japanese from the people who came to the United States from Japan to walk for a nuclear free future. During this course of this month, I will share stories from this five-day adventure through some of Western New York. I will now work on catching up with my blogging from A to Z.

Today's letter is K so, of course, I'll write about food. I know. Food begins with "f." But food comes from the kitchen, and kitchen starts with "k." 

The walk was really a fantastic experience because of the walkers and because of the hospitality of so many people along the path. 

There were about 35 walkers for the Western New York portion of the Walk for a Nuclear Free Future. We were visible with our banners and flags and with drumming and chanting. Our work was to walk and to share our hope for a nuclear free future with anyone who drove past us or walked past us or who saw us from a house or a field. 

When we grew tired or hungry, people from the various communities we visited served us food and offered us shelter. When we arrived at the Hamburg United Methodist Church after walking from downtown Buffalo in a cold wind, we were welcomed and offered sliced apples and oranges. We were also treated to a meal of delicious Thai food. In Springville, we were offered lasagna. There were always plenty of rice and beans and vegetables available for us.

People who came to walk for just a few days also served doses of kindness from their kitchens. A few people from Ithaca came to walk with us for a few day. They brought wraps filled with hummus, brown rice, cheese, and something else (I think). They also brought tofu that had been baked. We had cheese in waxy balls and cheese wrapped in plastic and we had vegetables and fruits.

In the Seneca Nation's Cattaraugus territory, we were served traditional corn soup, fry bread, and corn bread, among other delicious items. Traditional corn soup is made with white corn and salt pork and kidney beans. It is a fairly slow process. The corn was tender and tasty. It was prepared by our friend, Al White, who spent two days cooking the soup.

In the course of five days and many courses of food, I learned that food is a gift to be shared. I also learned that food is part of culture. For example, in the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) culture, corn, beans, and squash are grown together, and they are called the three sisters. Growing these plants together is a sustainable method of agriculture that keeps both the soil and human beings well nourished and thriving.

So... the kindness from many hands in the kitchen (including our own, when we were able to help prepare and serve food) kept us strong and able to walk...

(more stories will follow about the walk)

J is for journey

Today, I am joining the walk for a nuclear free future. I will walk with the group from Buffalo to the Seneca Nation of Indians' Cattaraugus territory. It is a distance of 71 miles. We will arrive at our destination on Wednesday. Many of the walkers will take a train to Albany on Thursday, but I will go home. Their goal is to arrive in New York City in time for the United Nations' discussion of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

I am happy to have the opportunity to do the "Buffalo" portion of the walk. It should be an interesting experience. Since I am going "low-tech," I will have nothing but a journal and camera with which to record my adventure. No computer. Therefore, I will be offline until Thursday, when I will start to catch up with my blogging. At that point, I will begin to share stories and pictures of the 71 mile walk.

Thank you for reading my stories and I will see you all when I come back home!

I is for Imagination

In previous blog entries, I suggested various creative writing exercises and discussed ways to use random word generators. This time, I am going to talk about something called a "story prompt." 

Last month, I was visiting friends in Cleveland, Ohio. We had a busy weekend. One of the activities that we enjoyed was a storytelling workshop. The instructor's name is Syd Lieberman. He is a retired teacher and a professional storyteller from Chicago. One thing that he talked about was the "story prompt." He said that story is about life and that we can tell stories, even about the most mundane, everyday event, such as a visit to the dentist. We're not always engaging our imaginations, though, to tell the stories our lives. "We fly through this life, like rocket ships."

To give ourselves a little boost in telling our own stories, we can use story prompts. These are questions that we can find to give us an idea of how to frame our stories. The story prompts give us the opportunity to engage our imaginations and write our personal stories in a way that previously, we had not even considered.

There are many story prompts on the internet. Here is a website that I found: short story prompts. 

Here is a prompt that I found on the above website:

41. Make a list of five things you're afraid of happening to you. Then write a story in which one of them happens to your character.

I am going to do this exercise and I will challenge you to do this exercise as well.

So here goes:

the list:

1. I set a fire in the kitchen when I'm cooking
2. the internet crashes and eats a three-page article that I've just finished writing
3. I go on a long walk with a group and get stranded, far from home. Everyone who could give me directions speaks a language that I don't understand.
4. I experience a plumbing disaster on a major holiday, depriving everyone in the house of water and bathroom facilities.
5. My hair falls out for no reason just before I am scheduled to go out on a date.

The story or, at least, the start of the story...:

It was going to be an awesome day. My friend's brother invited me out to listen to a Celtic music concert. We would go out to eat and then would go to the concert. I was so excited because it had been years since I'd been out on a date. In fact, I had completely forgotten any of the details of the date. All that I could remember was that it was a blind date. It was a very blind date. The guy was blind and his sister drove the car. She followed us in for the date, too, and she decided even before she met me that she didn't like me and that I wasn't good enough for her brother. The brother, I found out, was actually shorter than me, and I am barely five feet tall. His sister, on the other hand, was six feet tall. Large and in charge. I never dated that guy again. He was nice enough but his sister was scary. 

So, the new date. He was a nice guy and definitely taller than five feet tall. Also, he didn't have a large and in charge sister. 

I spent a lot of time picking out my outfit and shoes. I was really excited about my new fashion statement. I was also hoping that we wouldn't go anywhere that served messy food because I didn't want to embarrass myself by dribbling messy food all over my new fashion statement. I also decided that I wanted to get a new hairdo. I got up on the morning of the date and went to brush my teeth, shower, and brush my...

what? My head was a smooth ball, sort of like a billiard ball. What the heck? Where was my hair? It was completely gone. Disappeared during the night! What a nightmare! Why would this guy want to date me? Heck, I wouldn't date me. I went to my room and looked on my pillow. Maybe my hair fell out during the night. Nope, no hair on my pillow. Where did my hair go? It was gone. Fallen out and... stolen? Who would sneak into my room in the middle of the night to shave my head and swipe my hair? Whoever did this dastardly deed was very effective. I never felt a thing.

I got dressed and put on a fancy hat and went out anyway...

OK, your turn. Engage your imagination, turn off the internal critic, and go for it!!!

H is for history

Graycliff Estate in Derby, New York

One of the more interesting pieces of local history were the many great architects who designed houses and other buildings in Western New York. These included Louis Sullivan, who designed Buffalo's Guaranty Building; H.H. Richardson, who designed the Richardson Olmsted Complex; and Eliel and Eero Saarinen, who designed Kleinhan's Music Hall. Kleinhan's Music Hall is considered to be acoustically quite excellent and a great home for the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra. Buffalo also has an elaborate parks system, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. And then there was Frank Lloyd Wright, who came to Buffalo and designed gems. Some are still standing and others are gone. One of the gems that is gone is the administration building for the Larkin Soap Company. It was torn down in 1950. The tearing down is now seen as a serious error in judgment.

One of the still-standing gems, Graycliff Estate, was discussed in a power point presentation on Thursday, April 1st, at the general membership meeting of the Grand Island Historical Society.

Graycliff Estate was the summer home of Darwin and Isabelle Martin. Darwin Martin was an executive in the Larkin Soap Company. He had started his career as a door to door salesman of Larkin soap and was so effective at selling soap that he rose in the ranks until he became a top executive. Frank Lloyd Wright had designed Darwin Martin's house in the City of Buffalo, located on Jewett Parkway near Delaware Park. This house later became known as the "Darwin Martin House." It has been restored, and regular tours are given of the house. 

Later, the Martins wanted a summer home, which Frank Lloyd Wright designed. The summer home was to be a light-filled house, without stained glass windows. Isabelle Martin, whose eyesight was failing, was having trouble seeing in the dimness of the city house. Apparently, stained glass windows are pretty but they block much light from entering the house. The summer house, Graycliff Manor, was built on the shores of Lake Erie, in Derby. 

Here are few interesting facts that I found out about Frank Lloyd Wright and Graycliff Manor:

• Frank Lloyd Wright was an "organic architect." He used local materials for his buildings. One of the local materials that he used was limestone from the cliff.
• Frank Lloyd Wright wanted to build a reflecting pool at Graycliff, but Darwin Martin was not interested. 
• Because Graycliff was built for Isabelle Martin, it was known as the "Isabelle R. Martin House."
• Frank and Isabelle Martin's daughter was Dorothy, who married a Foster. There was a house for Dorothy and her family on the grounds of Graycliff, called the Foster house.
• The Martins had financial difficulties after the stock market crash of 1929, and the house was later sold to the Piarist Fathers (from Hungary), who turned the house into a boarding school.
• Many years later, the house was purchased by the Graycliff Conservancy. The house and all of the structures on the grounds are still being restored to their original condition.

If you are interested in taking a tour of Graycliff, check out this website: Graycliff tours! I am hoping to take a tour of Graycliff...

There are, however, many Frank Lloyd Wright structures to see. One of them is Fallingwater in Pennsylvania, which features a waterfall on the side of the house. That has to be seen to be believed, so I am putting Fallingwater on my bucket list!

G is for gardens

Today, it rained all day. It seemed dreary but, on the other hand, the rain was a welcome sight. Small shoots are popping out of the ground that will grow to be lovely early spring flowers. All of our spring flowers are delayed because of the seemingly endless and excruciatingly cold winter. 

I admit that I wasn't too thrilled about the rain. When there are abrupt changes in the barometric pressure, I tend to get sinus headaches, and, for sure, I had an annoying one yesterday. The rain came today. It is nourishing the earth, and that is all good.

Now that it is April, I am looking forward to getting back to my little gardening business. Mostly, what I will do at first will be cleanup in flower beds. This includes turning the soil, once the soil is not too wet. It's not a good idea to work the soil when it is saturated with water.

Here are some suggestions for the start of a new gardening season:

Pruning: Lots of people have asked when it is OK to prune their shrubbery. It depends on the shrubbery. Shrubbery that blooms in the springtime should be pruned after they have flowered. This includes forsythia and lilacs. If you prune them too early, you risk chopping off the buds and getting no flowers, which would be sad indeed. Forsythia is a cheerful yellow and lilacs are pretty and smell good. Azaleas, also, should not be pruned too early. Where I live, however, azaleas won't grow too well. Azaleas need acidic soil, and you'll need to amend the soil a great deal to get that acidic soil. Adding sulfur or ferrous sulfate will make the soil more acidic, which will help the azaleas grow better. Another approach to plants that don't grow well in the soil that you already have is to use raised beds. 

Shrubbery that flowers in the summer can be pruned early in the spring. That will actually encourage growth, which is a good thing at the right time. That's why you should avoid pruning in the autumn. You do not want to encourage growth when the plant is getting ready to go into winter dormancy.

 Planting: Somewhere in your garden space, try to plant things that are native to your region. Here in Western New York, native plants include wild geranium, purple cone flower, butterfly milkweed, black eyed Susan, and Eastern cone flower, among others. Native plants attract pollinators, which you will want in your garden, especially if you have something that needs pollinating, such as apple or pear trees. Milkweed attracts Monarch butterflies, which make a delightful sight in any garden. 

Gardening season is coming! And with it, you can surround yourself with beautiful colors and aromas. Enjoy... and I'll try to follow up with a few more gardening topics later this month.

Furry fuzzy fun feline friends, sponsored by the letter F

defining alliteration

Today's writing exercise is all about alliteration. Here is a definition of alliteration that I found on line: "the occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connection words." This is definitely the stuff of tongue twisters, such as "she sells seashells by the seashore" or "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, where's the peck of pickled peppers that Peter Piper picked?" Haha, try saying those ten times fast and you'll see what an unwieldy object you've got in your mouth (your tongue). You can use alliteration in sentences that are not tongue twisters. I found these sentences in your dictionary (dot) com Here is one: Fred's friends fried fritos for Friday's food. 

how to use alliteration

You can use alliteration in songs and in poems. Edgar Allen Poe and Robert Frost were two poets who enjoyed alliteration. Here are some examples that I found in Wickipedia of poetic alliteration (Hmm, "poetic poe" qualifies as alliteration): "And the silken sad uncertain rustling of the purple curtain thrilled me..." (Poe) or "For the sky and the sea or the sea and the sky" (Samuel Taylor Coleridge).

Sometimes, people have names with alliteration, as in Alice Adams or Gerald Jenkins.

Writing with friends for fun

I will demonstrate the use of alliteration in a creative writing exercise. This is an exercise that you can enjoy by yourself or with one other person or with a group. If you are homeschooling your kids, this is something that you can all enjoy together.

The first thing to do is to brainstorm. Today's letter is "F," so I am going to make a list of words that begin with the letter "F." If you have a topic that you've already chosen to write about, feel free to relate your words to that topic. The topic that I've chosen is cats. Since the word cat begins with the letter C, I'm calling them "felines." As a reminder about brainstorming: all ideas, however farfetched they sound, are good. Remember to turn off the internal (or external) critic. Laughter while choosing words,is definitely encouraged.

Here are my words:furry, fuzzy, fun, feline, friends, fiendish, famous, finicky, flaky, firm, flabby, fish, female, find, flamboyant, flutter, fix, fall, fashion, food, foodie, fast, feel, fill...

You could write a poem, a story, or even a play. The play might be challenging to produce, however, because your actors will probably stumble over the words. Oh, and remember, if your writings turn out to be a little nonsensical, that is perfectly OK. (making sense is highly overrated.) I will use a few of the words and write some haikus about the two cats below. They will be very nontraditional haikus because haikus are usually about seasons. I will also write a few sentences, using as many of the words as possible in each one.

Finicky feline
feeds on favorite fishes,
no fishy flavor

furry famous cat
with fuzzy friends far and near
fights for flamboyance

Father's favorite,
with softly feathery fur
flying in dad's face.

Fun felines follow in the fall through foothills and over and under fences.
Fabled felines find fanciness in foolish festivities.
Felines fail to find forks for foodie fun.

OK, your turn! Enjoy this fun game.

note: this blog post is dedicated to the memory of Smokey (2000-2012), the long-haired gray and white cat depicted above. It is also dedicated to the memory of my father, Roy Gerard (1920-2012), who loved and adored Smokey (as well as his human family).

E is for exercise

The exercise for today is a creative writing exercise. It's a bit different than yesterday's. Today, you're going to go to an online word generator and you're going to get eight words that will be randomly selected by computer. Once again, the idea is to use your imagination and have fun in the process. 

The online random word generator that I used is right here! It will generate eight random words for you. They are a mixture of nouns, verbs, and adjectives.

This is an exercise that you can do by yourself or with friends and family. In fact, you can do this as a party activity, especially if you're all using the same group of words. If the party is for adults, you could enjoy a glass of wine while writing. Or chocolate milk. That's appropriate for all ages.

Once you have your words, you will establish a time limit for creating your stories. There are various ways in which you can work. It is suggested that you can take the first word and make a sentence. Then keep writing, quickly, and keeping that pesky internal editor turned off. You can incorporate all of the words in your story. You can try to use as many of the words as possible in one sentence.
It is OK if your story makes no sense at all. Sometimes the stories that seem like utter nonsense end up by becoming great stories because they speak a truth that is great than fact.

So now, I will set my timer for ten minutes, and I will write, incorporating the following eight words into my story, starting with the first word, which I will use in my opening sentence.

cappuchino
frustrate
repulsive
clown
surprise
vivacious
school 
scrutinize

I was sitting by myself at a cafe, staring into a cup of cappuchino that I had not ordered. I ordered a cup of herbal tea because I needed to feel calm. My day could only frustrate me. I felt annoyed and irritated by developments that occurred around me.

It made me mad that my beautiful, quiet home was going to be surrounded by a housing development, full of repulsive McMansions. I could see it now. All of these nouveau riche folks sitting on their patios and drinking cappuchino in the sunset, having noisy parties, and driving expensive cars fast around curves, just because they can. I had moved to the country to avoid people, because I don't like people. They annoy me, especially the fake people who live in McMansions.

I got up and went home, fuming all of the time. It is odd that I don't like people. I used to be a clown. Not a circus clown. Just a clown that goes to kids parties and makes the kids laugh while wearing my makeup and my brightly colored costume. I wear a huge red nose on my face and a wig of purple, pink, and orange. The colors really clash, which makes the wig funnier. The kids love it. They chortle and squeal. I enjoy the kids. They are direct and honest and there is nothing fake about children. I guess that I don't dislike all people. In fact, I lied about not liking people. I just feel mad that the McMansions are going to be built so close to my little house and that the developer is going to chop down all of those old growth trees. 

I kept going on and on about my irritation, turning into some sort of curmudgeon. Suddenly, as I was yelling at the television about the bad state of world affairs, the doorbell rang. It was the mail carrier, who handed me a package. I had not ordered anything. I wondered what could be inside. I kept thinking over and over again about all of the terrorists being talked about on the news and, as I opened the package, I knew that I was in for a very bad surprise. Fortunately, I was wrong. There was no explosion. It was a box full of oranges and grapefruits, sent by my nephew in Florida. Oh, yummy. There was also a note: we are coming to visit you in a month. Be ready for all of us. My nephew is married and he and his wife have five children.

My nephew's wife is very vivacious and outgoing, everything that I am not. I am happy to keep to myself and entertain myself with my own thoughts, as I am doing right now. When I went to school, I learned that I was an introvert and that I was supposed to enjoy my own thoughts and that people tired me out, which is true. Just the thought of having all of those people in my house. Well, I'd better prepare myself. I scrutinized the box carefully, one more time. No bomb inside a fruit. I then went to taste test a grapefruit and tried to stop fuming over the McMansions...

Creative writing Sunday: using random word generators!

Today is a day off from the alphabet blogging (the A to Z Challenge), so I decided to do a creative writing activity. I would encourage you to do the same activity. It is a lot of fun and has the potential to produce a lot of giggles.

Before I get started on the activity, I have a few pointers for you on how to make your creative writing activity all about fun and not about stress.

• don't worry about grammar or spelling. You can edit later.
• turn off that little critic that's sitting in your head. The critic is your friend when you are rewriting something or when you need to prepare a polished copy of something for other people. When you are first writing, the internal critic is not your friend. Tell it to go to sleep.
• just write, as fast as you can. In this activity, the rule is no stopping.
• Remember, you don't have to create a Literary Masterpiece when you are first writing. That is just too much stress. This activity is supposed to be stress free.
• Have fun! This is the most important rule. You don't want to do a creative writing activity or a creative anything if the activity is less than fun. It's OK to giggle or even belly laugh when you are creating.

In this activity, you need the following:

• your imagination
• a computer or a pen and paper
• a timer
• a random generator, which you can find online. You'll want a random first line generator. You can find one at click on me!!!
• ten minutes in which you will not be interrupted, by other people or by your own personal needs.

So, put a glass of water next to you and get ready for a ten-minute timed writing. You'll get your first bunch of words from the random first line generator. Then it's ready, get set, go! 

Here is my effort. It comes with a disclaimer. "Any resemblance to living human beings in this story is pure coincidence. This story is fiction, generated by the author's feverish imagination."

The random first line that was generated is bolded:

They say everyone who looks into their family history will find a secret sooner or later. Sure enough, I found it. My family history had been hidden for years. The diaries of my great great grandparents had been stuck in a bank's safe deposit box. What the heck was with that? Well, I found the key. I wondered what the key was for. I was a little kid at the time when I found the key. I grabbed it and hid it and kept it for years. People were running around, searching for the key, afraid that some family enemy had managed to steal the key. There was much weeping and gnashing of teeth. It wasn't just people in the Bible who wept and gnashed their teeth.

The dentist was thrilled with all of that teeth gnashing. He sent his seven children to college and beyond with the money that my family paid to him to repair the teeth that had been ground down by the gnashing of teeth incident that had gone on for years.

As for me, I was clueless as to the dramatic emotional reaction that was going on around me. I had found a cute little key and I kept it. End of story. At least for me.

When I grew older, I was aware of the conversations about the missing key that could lead to secrets that my family didn't want to be let out. By this point, I had already decided to attend journalism school and become a Real Reporter. I decided that finding out what the secrets were that could be retrieved by the turning of a key could make for a great news story or an expose or something to that effect.

The first job was to get the name of the bank where the key would be useful. I had to figure this out and that wasn't too easy. Well, I did. I can't share with you how that happened because it would implicate too many people in my crime. It appears that relieving the safety deposit box of the incriminating journals was a crime, although I didn't know it.

I got the diaries and I read and read and read. Well, now I know where I got the writing gene. It was from my great great grandmother on my father's side. She was a writing whiz. She was also not a very friendly person. She disliked a lot of people around her, and she used her poison pen with great gusto. It seemed that her father had a wife and a few mistresses. He had children with all of these women. Each one. Who knows how many relatives I have? They are scattered all across the globe. 

But then, the bombshell. Apparently, none of these folks know that they were brother and sister. Or half brothers and half sisters. One girl fell in love with one boy and they did what came naturally when people get passionately in love with one another or passionate in lust with one another. The result was a little girl who seemed to not be in the best of health. She didn't die but she wasn't quite there. Everyone said that she wasn't quite there, and that she was very slow. Well, it was described in the diary how that girl and boy who fell in love were actually half siblings...

(ten minutes have elapsed but, wow, that was fun!!!)

D is for dancing and Degas

I belong to a book club that meets at the Grand Island Memorial Library once a month. We read a variety of books, including fiction, classics, nonfiction, and memoir. The benefit of belonging to a book club is that you read books by authors who are unknown to you. There are books that I would have never chosen to read if left on my own devices. These include Life After Life, by Kate Atkinson, and Americanah, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I now want to read more from these authors, and I am grateful to the book club for broadening my horizons.


This month's book is The Painted Girls, by Cathy Marie Buchanan. This author was not unknown to me. I had previously read her first novel, The Day the Falls Stood Still. Ms. Buchanan is a Canadian author who grew up in Niagara Falls, Ontario. She now lives in Toronto. The Day the Falls Stood Still is a tale of romance and living under the long shadow of the falls. In fact, Niagara Falls itself seems to be a living character in this book, set just before and during World War I.

Cathy Marie Buchanan's book was chosen as this month's book to help book club members be prepared to attend the library's annual meeting in May, which will feature Cathy Marie Buchanan as the guest speaker.

Cathy Marie Buchanan's second book, The Painted Girls, is set in France in the nineteenth century. It is about the van Goethem sisters, Antoinette, Marie, and Charlotte. They were real people who went to the dance school at the Paris opera, where they learned ballet. Their lives were rough. Their father, a tailor, had died, and their mother was a washerwoman. She was an alcoholic, who got her consolation from a bottle of absinthe. Her income went to her beverage of choice, not to food for her daughters. The girls who attended the dance school and who aspired to become part of the ballet company were called "petits rats." That doesn't sound very complimentary of the children.

Marie became a model for the painter Edgar Degas (1834 - 1917). He was an impressionistic artist, although he claimed that he didn't really like impressionism. She will live forever in the sculpture "Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans" (Little Dancer of Fourteen Years). Charlotte, the youngest, lived to dance and she went on to a fifty-three year career as a ballerina and as a dance teacher.

The story, although based on the lives of three real sisters, is fiction. It is a compelling tale of people who struggle, despite great hardship, to make something of their lives. I learned a lot about dance and art, as well as a little about Degas, by reading this book. It is beautifully written, and well researched, and the characters come alive in the pages of the book. I would definitely recommend this book.

Alphabetical musings... the A through Z challenge

I signed up for the A through Z blogging challenge for the month of April and, of course, promptly forgot about it. 

Fortunately, today, I received a friendly reminder. So I am a little bit behind schedule but I am used to being behind schedule (or battling with tight deadlines), so I am OK with it.

Before I go for the letters, I will briefly introduce myself. My name is Alice Gerard, and I am a freelance journalist, artist-wanna-be, and gardener. Currently, my gardening career is dormant but I have seen the tiniest green things attempting to burst from the cold, saturated ground.

Since I am behind already, I will do three letters today. Each letter will accompany a picture.

A. I'm starting with A underneath my painting of a waterfalls. A is for Art. Art is an important part of my life, but that wasn't always so. When I was in high school, I abruptly decided that I was no good at art so I gave it up. Looking back upon that, with the advantage of years of living, I can see that the moment in which I decided to give up art was not one of my finer moments. 

So how did I go back to art?

Well, I am fortunate to be blessed with friends. One of them is Ellen, who never made the foolish choice of giving up Art. She kept at it, in high school and after high school. One day, I went to visit her. Her oldest son was very little then, although he always denied being little. When Joseph was two, he said, "I am not little. I am big!" Indeed he was. He loved his food and he quickly became big and strong.

But, I digress. This one day, when I visited Ellen, she told me to sit at the dining room table. I did so and she placed a vase, filled with cosmos, and a piece of paper and a bunch of colored pencils in front of me.

I was totally mystified by this.

"Draw," Ellen commanded. I think that she remembered that, when I went back to college, I had taken an art class for nonmajors, and I painted and drew. It was fun because I had no expectations of myself. I knew that I was a Bad Artist and I was only expecting to have fun and not to worry about how the paintings turned out.

Ellen commanded me to draw. So I drew a portrait of cosmos in a jar.

It was fun. The result was cute.

Ellen informed me that I had to draw regularly. In fact, all the time would be appropriate.

Later, I took the drawing to my mother. She told me that I had to draw and paint and take art classes.

Which I did.

And so, Art became part of my life again and was no longer Banished.

And speaking of Banished, that begins with the letter B so I'll go to the next tale. 

B is for Blue, not Banished: I did mention the word "banished" in my "A" section, but, no. I don't really want to write about banishment because that is kind of unpleasant. I don't know if I've ever been Banished from anywhere. I guess that the time when I was in prison and was sent to the segregation unit for violating the rules might qualify as Banishment. I still think that I was justified in violating the rules. Anyway, that was eleven years ago! Hard to believe. I had written about that earlier in this Blog (another B word), so I'll give a brief synopsis.

I went to federal prison camp for protesting against a military training school at Fort Benning, Georgia, that trained (and still trains) Latin American military and police. Some of the training is quite inappropriate. There are allegations that the students are being taught the finer points of torture and assassination. The school and the defense department have refused to agree to an independent investigation of the the instruction at this school, as well as the backgrounds of the students and instructors. There is very little transparency from the school. When information is requested under the freedom of information law, it is sent out, heavily redacted.

So I walked on the grounds of Fort Benning during a protest, which apparently was illegal. I did this three times. Each time, I felt a little mystified as to why the first amendment failed to kick in. As a result, I went to federal prison three times, for a total of fifteen months. The last time that I went to federal prison was eight years ago. After that, I decided that I was not going to single-handedly close the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (formerly known as the School of the Americas) by going to prison over and over and over again.

When you are in federal prison camp, you have to have a job. The first job that I had in federal prison camp was as a tutor in the education program. There was a teacher who was not very well behaved. He yelled at the students and some of the things that he said were extremely inappropriate. A day after one of the teacher's tirades that could have been considered sexual harassment in a public school, I decided to go on strike. My goal was to get the teacher to do the Donald Trump thing and say, "You're fired!"

Apparently, I miscalculated. I didn't get fired. I got banished to the segregation unit, where I had the honor of living in a little cage and wearing an orange outfit that made me look like a large pumpkin (my head was the stem). Even my shoes were bright orange. Every time I left my cage, I was handcuffed, which seemed a bit excessive. I couldn't have run away, even if I had the opportunity to do so in the "special housing unit" that reminded me of the Bastille. Hey. Bastille. That is a B word! My shoes were two sizes too small. They fit like sausage casings. Since my feet aren't actually sausages, the sausage casing shoes did not encourage a lot of movement on my part.

After about 24 hours, I was out of segregation. It was decided that I shouldn't be there. I was told that I couldn't handle it, which was true but I didn't have any desire to share with these folks the fact that I am extremely claustrophobic. In short, I was Banished from Banishment.
But back to the letter B. I chose to write about Blue because Blue is better than Banishment. It turns out, however, that Banishment is more entertaining that Blue.

By the way, my banishment is described in Orange is the New Black in a very dramatic way and a bit exaggerated. For one thing, I didn't talk about the School of the Americas "ad nauseum." It would be amazing if I did because I... oh look a Bird!!!... am too distractable to keep to one subject for that long! Apparently, that's part of my Myers Briggs personality type (ESFP), which I will talk about when I get to the letter "P" (for "personality," not for "pain in the butt"). Also, the concept of my being handcuffed ungently and dragged away by three Big goons is just pure fiction. The prison wouldn't waste that much manpower on one nonthreatening little inmate. Not only that, the prison powers that be were not ready to provide me with that much entertainment. That would have been worthy of storytelling for years to come or the creation of a TV miniseries about me.
All I can say is... I wonder who would play me in a TV miniseries??

Let's see. The letter C. I was going to write about Church. At least, that's the picture I intended to use.

The letter C. Church... chocolate... candy...

Oh. Candy. I gave it up for Lent.

Everywhere I go, I see candy. It looks tasty. Chocolate candies especially.

But it is now Good Friday.

Lent is coming to a close soon.

Then it will be Easter.

I can eat all the candy I could hope for.

Giving up candy didn't cause me to lose any weight. Not one ounce. It's been months since I've been able to go out for a really long walk. I have spent a lot of time inside. That's kind of boring. On the other hand, my long-dormant journalism career came back to life. I've been writing weekly for the Island Dispatch.  I wrote about the Lenten luncheon series, which was presented by the five churches that are part of the Grand Island Ministerium. The theme of the Lenten luncheons were the parables of Jesus Christ.

Each church prepared the luncheon, and attendees paid five dollars for lunch. Hey, where can you get a good lunch for five dollars, which includes coffee, tea, and dessert?

I learned that Jesus directed his parables at different audiences. The parable of the rich man and Lazarus was a warning for people who were too much in love with themselves and their possessions and too little in love with their fellow human beings. The rich man lived a great life and then passed away and went to Hell because he was self absorbed and ignored Lazarus, a homeless man who sat at the rich man's gate, waiting for scraps of food that never came. The rich man in the underworld was very remorseful. Lazarus, on the other hand, passed away and was carried away by angels to the bosom of Abraham.

The rich man begged Lazarus for help but Lazarus could not bridge the gap between heaven and hell.

The message to the rich people? Help your fellow human. You can't take your wealth with you.

The parable of the rich man, who interestingly enough was anonymous, even though he felt himself to be very important, and other parables were meant to teach a lesson.

Another parable, the parable of the wicked tenants, was aimed to the religious leadership. It was meant to serve as an indictment, not merely as instruction for them.

Jesus told the parable after he entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. The story was about a landowner who established a new vineyard. Then he went to a far country, leaving his vineyard in the hands of tenants. The tenants were to take care of the vineyard and pay the landowner with part of the crop.

When the landowner's servant went to collect after the crop grew to maturity, the tenants attacked and killed the servant. The landowner sent another servant, who met with the same fate.

The landowner decided that he should send his only son to collect the crop, with the idea that the tenants would not kill this young man.

The tenants murdered the son of the landowner in the belief that, with the landowner out of the way, the vineyard would belong to them.

Jesus asked the religious leaders what should happen to the murderous tenants when the landowner returned and discovered that his only son had been brutally slain. The religious leaders answered that the evil tenants should be destroyed and the land leased to tenants who fulfill their responsibilities.

The religious leaders feared that Jesus was describing them in the story. They were the bad tenants, the landowner was God, and the landowner's son was Jesus.

That was the point at which the religious leaders felt that their power was being threatened by a usurper. Jesus did not belong to the priestly clan.

The religious leaders had to get rid of the threat to their power.

They were determined to maintain their power at all costs.

That threat was Jesus.

They had Jesus killed.

The religious leaders believed that the threat to their power had been eliminated.

They were wrong.

For the powerful, getting rid of perceived threats seldom works.

In El Salvador, the powers-that-be saw Archbishop Oscar Romero as a threat when he spoke up on behalf of the poor during the civil war. The archbishop also begged the Salvadoran military not to kill their fellow citizens, their brothers.

The powers that be in El Salvador, which was then ruled by fourteen families, felt that the archbishop should die, rather than challenge their power any longer.

When the archbishop was celebrating mass at a cancer hospital in San Salvador, he was shot to death by a death squad.

He was no more.

The threat to power did not go away.

There is now a different government in El Salvador.

Archbishop Oscar Romero is well on his way to being Saint Oscar Romero.

The tragedy of Strawberry Island

Note: The above picture was painted in August 2013 at Beaver Island State Park. It is a view of the river from the park.

Before I tell you the tragic story of Strawberry Island, I want to tell you about one of my most favorite of children's books: The Giving Tree, written and illustrated by Shel Silverstein (1930-1999). It is very poetic.  A boy and a tree loved each other, but the boy took far more than he gave. At first, when the boy was little, he was content simply to climb the tree and to play with the leaves and to sleep in her shade. After a number of years, the boy said that he was too old to play and that he wanted money more than he wanted to enjoy the companionship of the tree, whom he had once loved very much.
The tree loved the boy more than she loved herself and she offered everything that she had and everything that she was to the boy so that he would be happy.
Eventually, all that was left of the tree was a stump. She could no longer produce apples or provide shade. She still loved the boy and she gave him the only thing that was left: a place to sit and rest. That was enough for the boy because he had grown old and no longer had the strength to climb and his teeth were too weak for chewing apples.
This story of unconditional love makes me feel sad and joyous, both at the same time.
Yesterday evening, I went to the Buffalo Launch Club to eat delicious food and to hear a presentation about Strawberry Island and Motor Boat Island. They are small islands in the Niagara River, located between Tonawanda and the southern tip of Grand Island.
Strawberry Island is one of those small island in the Niagara River. So I will tell the story, a little bit differently than it was presented, which was factually. I will tell it as a story of an island that gave and gave and gave, until it had nothing left to give. Once, a long time ago, Strawberry Island was much larger than it is now.
The Neuter Nation, who were allied to the Eries, who were mound builders, loved the Niagara River. Their name for the river was Onguiaahra. People then went to Strawberry Island, and they foraged for food. Except for some food to nourish human bodies, the visitors did not take anything away from Strawberry Island.
The Neuter nation was gone by the 1700s. In the 1700s, fur traders wrote about Strawberry Island in their journals. Whether or not they visited the island, I don't really know.  
The journals of British General James Wilkinson during the War of 1812 make reference to several islands in the Niagara River, including Strawberry Island and Frog Island. In fact, Strawberry Island was occupied by the Americans for a while. They were there to try to prevent the British from burning down Buffalo for a second time.
After the war, in about 1815, title to the land went to New York State. To obtain that title, New York State paid the Senecas a one-time amount of $1,000 and an annual amount of $500 in perpetuity. That $500 is still paid to the Senecas.
Surveyor General Simeon DeWitt had the island surveyed in 1824. It was determined that the island was 100 acres in size. It consisted of marsh and upland woods and was capable of producing hay. Strawberry Island and the other islands in the Niagara River were seen as valuable to hunters and fishermen, including President Grover Cleveland (the only president with two nonconsecutive terms) and President Theodore Roosevelt (who established the National Park system).
In the mid-nineteenth century, Strawberry Island was seen as a place for people to go for rest and relaxation. A hotel was built with verandas on the island. A canal was built through the south end of the island so that people could enjoy boating without having to endure the harsh undercurrents of the Niagara River. Visitors were happy to get away from Buffalo, which was dirty and smelly.
By 1892, the hotel was closed. People preferred going to the larger hotels in Grand Island, and Strawberry Island was seen as too small.
Strawberry Island would eventually become much smaller.
In 1923, a survey was done that indicated that Strawberry Island was 200 acres in size. At about that time, sand and gravel dredging began. When Buffalo Gravel purchased Strawberry Island in 1926, sand and gravel dredging was done faster and faster and faster.
The island was giving up her very existence.
She was being dismantled, piece by piece.
Without the sand and gravel, the soil eroded from the island. It did not take long before the island was 100 acres smaller than it had been when the survey was done in 1923.
There were consequences to this destructive mining. Because the land mass of Strawberry Island was being mined for gravel and sand, the lake levels began to drop. This made shippers and sportsmen angry. Dredging was temporarily halted. All sorts of legal action took place, including a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineer. In 1948, the size of the island was 36 acres. That same year, dredging resumed.
The island continued to shrink. It had a lagoon and it was rapidly shrinking, as a result of dredging and other activities.
At that time, no one thought to take care of the island, to keep it from eroding further.
The island had given until it could give no more.
Only a small land mass was left.
There was very little left to dredge.
The island was like the giving tree at the end of the story. There was nothing left of the tree but a stump.
Yet the tree still loved the boy, who had grown old and only had enough strength to sit on the stump and rest.
When the New York State Department of Parks purchased the island in 1989, it seemed as if it people would finally give something to the island. Garbage cans were installed to encourage people to dispose of their waste responsibly. The island, however, continued to shrink until is was not even 25 acres in size.
The island had given until it gave no more. It gave up its sand and it gave up its gravel because humans wanted those things for building and for industry.
Finally, a person came along who wanted to give to the island. His name is Frank Levin. In 1993, he raised the money needed to help stabilize the island, which had shrunk to just five acres.
Today, native vegetation is once again growing on the tiny island that was once a 200 acre piece of land that could support people's need for food.
You can go to Strawberry Island in canoes and kayaks, and that's about it. People are not encouraged to go there because of concern that the ecosystem of the fragile island could not withstand another human invasion.
Eco-tourism, however, is a new thing in the Niagara River, so it may be possible to see the tiny islands of the Niagara without damage to the ecosystem. If I get that opportunity, I'll share the photographs with you right here in this blog.
And I hope that is a gift that I can offer to an island that gave and gave and gave until she had nothing left to give.

Visiting the Hotel @ The Lafayette (formerly known as the Hotel Lafayette)

In October, documentary filmmaker Jackie Albarella gave a presentation to the Grand Island Historical Society about the history and restoration of the Hotel Lafayette in downtown Buffalo. I was so fascinated by the pictures of this Buffalo landmark that I bought Jackie's book. The book was created from Jackie's experiences at the hotel. She was able to visit the restoration project daily and document the entire two-year process of restoring the hotel to its former status as an architectural gem in the City of Buffalo.
Here is a link to my October blog post about the Hotel Lafayette: 
Restoration of the Hotel Lafayette
Incidentally, the City of Buffalo is filled with architectural gems and, when the weather is more conducive, I will photograph some of Buffalo's more interesting structures and share those pictures on this blog.
Yesterday, my friend Dave Baker and I went to the Hotel @ the Lafayette to attend a fundraiser for the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library system. The fundraiser involved food and wine and a silent auction. Many people were there to enjoy the festivities and to show their support for the library system. The building is just as beautiful as the pictures depicted it to be but the acoustics inside? A nightmare. Way too loud and echoey and I did not understand a word that the speaker said.
Here are a few pictures of the building that I took.

This painting is part of the wall. After Rocco Termini purchased the building and began the restoration process, he had art conservationists restore this painting to its original condition.

This corridor features all sorts of interesting stuff, including this pattern on the floor.

Patterns in the glass.

Detailed ceiling. Almost like a love letter from 1913.

Interesting geometric design.

Old style telephone. 

The Pam American Exposition of 1901, as seen outside of the ladies room. The original intention of the Pan American exposition was to celebrate electricity and the marvels that it created. As Buffalo was among the first cities in the United States to be electrified. Unfortunately, President McKinley was shot outside of the Temple of Music. A few days later, he died, and that is the thing that is most remembered about the Pan American Exposition (the death of a president),

Another view of the Pan American Exposition. Most of the buildings were temporary. The one building that was not later became home to the Buffalo History Museum, home of the Buffalo Historical Society.

A fine place to enjoy food or drink... but exposed to the elements so it is not used in the winter...

A peek inside the florist shop, which was closed.

Another view of the florist shop and its Christmas decorations. Soon  it will be time to decorate for Valentine's Day!

A view of the mailboxes at the original checkin desk at the hotel.

Dave Baker waits for the elevator.